


Animus, Oblique

by threnodyjones



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, Incidental Het - stop fearing young slash hoppers and embrace bisexuality, M/M, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-29
Updated: 2006-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:03:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threnodyjones/pseuds/threnodyjones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All that is mine I carry with me. - Cicero</p>
            </blockquote>





	Animus, Oblique

1.

 ** _Sero in periculis est consilium quaerere._**  
It's too late to ask advice when the danger comes.  
Publilius Syrus, _Maxims_

 

 _I did what had to be done._

They'd returned through the gate, all of them; worn, dirty, each of them a bit more haunted than the last time. Elizabeth had wanted an immediate briefing, but had been staved off long enough for them to get an infirmary check and a shower.

Teyla hadn't been happy with the situation, but she had accepted it. Ronon hadn't seen a problem at all. Rodney fell on the side of 'we're still alive, what's the complaint?' And John... he hadn't been certain what he was feeling, hadn't known if he'd gone too far or not far enough.

But sitting in the infirmary, watching Teyla get the Ancient equivalent of an MRI because of a serious knock to her head because she was a woman who'd dared to speak... John's mind had been made up.

 _Look, you weren't there._

Elizabeth hadn't been happy.

They'd gone looking for a people the Athosians had called friends, had instead found another group in their place. John had no proof, but he had very sincere suspicions about what had happened to the Athosians' trading partners.

John had been only a few minutes into his talk with them when the mood had changed.

 _We didn't have a way back to the gate, and when we did, we came right home.I'm not seeing that we had another option._

There was always more than one way of doing things, at least according to Elizabeth Weir. And maybe, in her experiences, that was true. Maybe she'd been lucky enough – blessed enough – in her dealings with other people to have several options open to her for acceptance or rejection. Maybe she'd never had to face a literal do or die scenario.

John both admired her and resented her for it, because life wasn't always a choose-your-own-adventure story and he always seemed to get the option-A-only craps roll.

 _Once they realized Ronon had been a Runner, any reason we had for being on that moon was shit-canned, because all they wanted to do was turn him over to the Wraith and kill the rest of us for helping him._

Rodney had received a brunt of the attention for a while there, loudly protesting Teyla's treatment when John had crept into Ronon's jail and freed him. Things had escalated badly once the people in charge realized Ronon was free, and by the time they'd reached the guarded gate there had already been a body count. Just not on their side.

 _Maybe that would have made Elizabeth happier_ , John thought spitefully, hating himself the instant he thought it.

He listened to the riot act, listened to the speech about needing more diplomacy in the field and less hotheaded action. Teyla at least seemed to be paying attention, though she was interjecting protests here and there. John probably had the same pretensed look of concentration on his face that Ronon did. McKay wasn't even trying; he'd shut Elizabeth out and begun typing his report there at the conference table.

Eventually she let the rest of them leave, but she'd kept John a few minutes more, expressing her deep concern over how the mission turned out.

Rodney was waiting for him when he emerged, laptop tucked under his arm, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

Buy you an MRE, he said, falling into step beside John.

Isn't that supposed to be my line? John asked.

Yeah, well, you didn't really look up to it. So. Lunch?

Yeah. Lunch.

 

2.

 ** _Faber est suae quisque fortunae._**  
 _Every man is the artisan of his own fortune._  
Appius Claudius Caecus

 

When Rodney was seven, he could do math better than his father.

When Rodney was nine, he understood the nature of the universe better than his science teacher.

When Rodney was six he knew more English and French vocabulary than his mother (and some of his teachers).

When Rodney was three he knew more about music than his sister.

When Rodney was four he realized his parents hated each other.

When Rodney was twelve he learned he would never be a pianist.

When Rodney was eleven he learned showing how smart he was could be a Very Bad Thing.

When Rodney was thirteen he learned showing how smart he was could be a Very Good Thing.

When Rodney was twenty-three he learned Machiavelli was right.

When Rodney was fifteen he got his first job with a government agency.

When Rodney was seventeen he left his family, like they had left him years ago.

When Rodney was twenty-seven he learned about the Stargate.

When Rodney was thirty-four he learned that love didn't need brilliance (but it helped).

When Rodney was thirty-seven he learned that brilliance did need love.

When Rodney was thirty-six he met John Sheppard.

Shortly after meeting John Sheppard, Rodney turned thirty-seven.

 

3.

 ** _Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora,  
Te teneam, moriens deficiente manu._**  
 _May it be you I look upon, when my final hour comes,_  
 _And as I die, may I hold you with my failing hands._  
Albius Tibullus, _Delia I_

 

"Rodney."

John's voice was little but a wispy rasp, energy and vitality burnt away by fever, septic shock. God knew what else. Rodney crouched by his side, boots rocking unsteadily on the uneven ground of their cell.

"Rodney."

"I'm here, John." Rodney laid his hand on John's shoulder, wanting to touch more, worried that John's skin was still too sensitive. "I'm right here."

An arm flailed, hand grabbing at Rodney's and Rodney let John take it, relishing in the weak strength still left in John's body.

"How long?" Fingers squeezed his lightly, and he held on as hard as he could, trying to avoid answering as long as possible.

"Sixteen days.The gunfire stopped four days ago." Four very, very long days ago.

"Eaten?"

"Yeah, I've eaten," he lied. The headaches and dizziness were constants now. He'd found the stash John had squirreled away for him at the beginning, when they'd been given food. It was gone now.

"Liar."

"Yeah." Water was harder to come by, but what he'd managed to collect he'd given to John, anything to help with the fever.

"Come here." There was an infinitesimal tug on his hand.

"I'm right here, John." _Please don't die._

"Rodney." Tug again. "Come here."

This time he followed the tug, laying down beside John, feeling the heat radiating off him. Slowly he maneuvered himself, resting his head on John's shoulder. John wrapped his arms around him, and Rodney quieted, absorbing the sensation, holding on to it.

 _Don't die,_ he asked, begged, pled. _Please don't die._

 

4.

 ** _Cave sis cum Amore tu unquam bellum sumpseris._**  
 _Take care that you never declare war on Cupid._  
Plautus, _Cistellaria_

 

Major Sheppard? Impulsive and sometimes hotheaded.  
Lt. Colonel Sheppard? Less tempestuous and more regimented.  
John Sheppard? Aloof as hell and twice as unfathomable.

Rodney had once had a girlfriend who couldn't stand to be touched unless at least exactly one hour and thirty-two minutes had passed since she'd been in the room with that someone. She slept with the lights on and no doors in her apartment, but ultimately it was Rodney's fear of all things citrus that led to their break up, because she just refused to believe that citrus-based floor cleaner could set off Rodney's allergy (which it could!)

She had accepted his love affair with caffeine, his superiority over the rest of mankind, and his nocturnal hours, but looking back he guessed the last was because it kept the lights on, the middle because she was his typical dumb blonde, and the first because she was just as addicted as he was.

But when the final fight happened, somewhere between his shouting and her crying Rodney just stopped, picked up his laptop and walked out, because it had occurred to him – in the midst of belittling her attempts at advanced communication – to wonder why he was even trying to stop the breakup from happening. He didn't love her, didn't even have anything more than his laptop at her apartment.

To this day, he still couldn't remember what she'd been yelling at him about in the first place.

But that wasn't the point. Rodney understood neuroses. He knew that most neuroses had some basis, at least somewhere, just as he knew that a lot of his _didn't_. Rodney chose to overlook his more neurotic mannerisms and psychological fuck-ups because his genius and contributions to society meant that he would be able to get away with them in the long run.

In Rodney's deepest heart of hearts, the place where he could admit to himself that yes, he really was more neurotic than he needed to be, it never occurred to him that someone could be more fucked up than him.

But then came John Sheppard. John Sheppard, who hid all his issues behind a pretty smile, a laid back slouch, and his command position.

First he'd been the outsider who'd done the impossible and made the chair sing for them. Then he was the officer who'd demanded Rodney dial _all 720_ gate address permutations to find captured team members. Then he was the guy who'd laughed at Rodney's caustic sarcasm because _he got it_. Then he was the team member who made Rodney sometimes forget that he wasn't supposed to do brave and ultimately completely idiotic, _life shortening_ things.

Then somewhere along the line he became 'John' in Rodney's head, and one day in the labs while trading absolutely vital information on co-workers with Zelenka he realized that while he knew Major/Colonel Sheppard (or thought he did) he didn't know one damned iota about John beyond the superficial. Later, while gnawing on a powerbar and reading through the untranslated database, he realized he really didn't know that much about Major/Colonel Sheppard, either.

In fact, John didn't talk about anything prior to Afghanistan unless it was in brief and vague reference to his spectacularly unstellar career before Afghanistan. No talk of wild exploits or boring tours. No talk of friends or girlfriends. No talk of family in even the loosest of contexts.

After some (entirely legitimate!) inquiries into the well being of a member of the Atlantis expedition before they'd left for Pegasus again, Rodney had learned that the entire time back Sheppard had made not one personal visit, nor one personal phone call. He'd spent time contacting family of fallen soldiers, spent even more time debriefing, but aside from a few brief hotel stays and updating his account with a storage company in Georgia (ten by ten! Who fits their belongings in a ten by ten hole in the wall!), Sheppard had spent all his time in the barracks at the SGC.

Rodney had cracked into the data files they'd sent to Earth before the Wraith had arrived at Atlantis, to see Sheppard's message. He'd known that John had taped a message, he'd seen Elizabeth hand him the camera and point him in the direction of the tripod. He'd thought it would be a message to family, like everyone else. An old girlfriend, even. Anything but the terse, if sincere, message to the family of Colonel Sumner.

Who the hell would spend their last opportunity phoning home _not_ talking to someone they knew? It made no logical emotional sense.

Rodney had been completely hooked after that. A no-turning-back type of hooked. His questions had originally started out in a take-'em-or-leave-'em mental churning to distract himself while his subconscious worked on equations, but now... now this was an official _query_.

Rodney also spent time watching Sheppard, observing him. He took an obscene amount of pride in his hair, his uniform, and his flying capabilities. While he was friendly with everyone, he had few friends, which made Rodney feel pathetically proud, because he knew Sheppard considered him a friend. Sheppard could deflect conversations like no other and legitimately didn't seem to understand that he wasn't automatically expendable on this expedition. He also didn't like to be touched, in a way that reminded Rodney too much of that long-ago girlfriend and made Rodney a bit nauseous when he thought too much about it.

He'd once told himself - and meant it - that he was too good for love; he could play through some of the motions of a relationship but ultimately it was about gratification and maybe someone else buying the food, not companionship. The average person, which made up an unfortunate 98% of the planet, was just too irritatingly stupid and/or co-dependant to get along with. Give him a cat any day.

And then the Major had sat down in that damned chair and Rodney McKay had finally met John Sheppard.

 

5.

 ** _Vivere commune est, sed non commune mereri._**  
 _Everybody lives; not everybody deserves to._  
Prudentius, _Contra Orationem Symmachi II_

 

Antarctica had suited him.

Vast stretches of sheeted ice, layered over hundreds of miles, hiding the series of mountain- and valley-scapes.

Bright sunny days making snow and ice and the tips of waves twinkle to the point that you could almost forget the cold.

Bright sunny days meant he could go up in the air and fly wherever he wanted, because the air restrictions in Antarctica were practically nonexistent compared with the rest of the world.

On bright sunny days he would sometimes accompany the geologists and geophysicists as they did their thing, because he loved following the precise beauty of Antarctica's mountain peaks and canyons and crevasses with his eyes.

Where bright sunny days didn't exist, storm fronts ravished the terrain, pouring ice-laden fury across the continent. Forgiveness didn't exist there; one mistake and it was the end. John understood the storms, and he liked Antarctica because it was peaceful right up to the point it nearly killed you. Antarctica was supposed to be exile for him, a punishment of life left in the service spent flying helicopters, shuttling people around until he struck out twice with the review board because he was too damned stubborn to throw in the towel.

Then he'd made the mistake of remembering his inner fighter pilot, being too cocky, and sitting where he wasn't supposed to.

***

For John Sheppard, Atlantis is the hue of God.

She always whispers, in the recesses of his mind, small tickles to let him know she's there, ready to obey his whim. Wanting to obey his whim.

From the moment he steps through the Stargate for the first time, there is a slight pressure in his mind, the weight of something forgotten but needing to be remembered. He once thought it disappeared when he went to other planets, but later he finds it is always there, a beacon shining in the night, calling him back home.

Light filters through her windows like joy, and her towers rise up like they could touch the sky. She has untold facets to behold and explore, some dangerous, others not so much. It's all beautiful to him.

When John thinks it can't get any better, he takes a jumper out and flies around the planet. His leap of faith has brought him to this place, and he hasn't had to give up his dreams. Instead he's learned to touch the sky, too.

 

6.

 ** _Sic itur ad astra_**  
 _Thus shall you go to the stars_  
Virgil, _Aenid IX_

 

John is eighteen, on his first break with the Air Force after signing, and manages to get himself seduced by a woman two decades his senior. She's lovely and vibrant and possesses more _joie de vivre_ than anybody he's ever met.

They go up to her hotel room and before they make it to the door he's hot and hard and already half out of his clothes. She shuts the door and it locks with a satisfying _click_ , but before he can do anything she takes his face in her hands and gives him the hottest, wettest, _longest_ kiss he's ever received. As she kisses him, John thinks he's either going to pass out or melt into the floor because he didn't know a kiss could be like that, didn't know that someone could tell you everything they were going to be doing to your body based on a conversation with lips and tongues and teeth.

 _It's about pleasure_ , she says. _If you want to be a successful lover, it isn't about how much energy you throw into it..._

Their clothes are eventually gone, but John doesn't remember much of how it happens. They're teasing one another, learning things about each other's bodies that John wouldn't have otherwise bothered with. She's sensual, hedonistic, sybaritic. She wakens those things in him, too.

 _It's not a one-night stand_ , she whispers in his ear as she rides his body, hands ghosting down his torso. _Never make it about lust. It's a night of passion._

Hours later she rights her clothes and face while John showers and they return to the bar. They spend time dancing before they lose each other in the crowd, and eventually the night ends.

***

When John wakes he tastes the desire on his lips. Raw beads of sweat break out across his skin and sleep-scented warmth radiates from the body next to him.

John rolls lethargically, bringing his body flush with Rodney's. When he opens his eyes Rodney's back greets him, with its acres of skin. John kisses at vertebrae, mouthing and sucking as he runs a hand down Rodney's flank. The rasp of his stubble sounds loud to him, and he feels Rodney waking, feels the slight arch of his body.

John leans up to kiss the nape of Rodney's neck. "You up to another go?"

Rodney moves and then groans. "I hurt in places I forgot could hurt," he says, apparently addressing the pillow.

John takes it as a yes, because with Rodney no is no and yes is just about everything else.

Easily, John begins to knead the small of Rodney's back, digging his fingers into the muscles and smoothing out the tension with his thumbs. Groans sound along with imprecations and warnings to never, ever stop what he's doing. John smiles to himself and moves his handiwork outwards a bit more. Rodney stretches out like it's his due, but when John leans over to kiss his jaw Rodney twists just enough so their lips connect and then John forgets all about _illocostalis_ and _longissimus_ and _latissimus dorsi_ muscles.

Rodney: better at sex than John would have supposed. Not a slight, just an observation. Rodney twists them around and when John feels teeth on his neck he thrusts involuntarily, but he's trapped with one of Rodney's hands braced on his neck and the other holding him close.

Rodney kisses like tomorrow is ending. He kisses like physics no longer matters. He moans and clutches and enjoys every second of it. He kisses like he's a different person, or maybe like he's actually himself, for a change. John doesn't quite know the answer to that one yet. But when Rodney kisses he forgets everything – worries, anxieties, pains, they all drop from his face and his body. John likes the change.

 _It's about the pleasure you create with someone else, not the conquest. Anything else is as degrading to you as it is to them._

He still sometimes recalls the woman who told him that.

The sun crests the ocean while they lay together, spilling light across the horizon at a dizzying pace. John turns his head, brushing a kiss on Rodney's wrist, and another on his palm as they move together. They have all the time in the world.

 

End.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my betas [enchantress](http://enchanteresse.livejournal.com/) and [opheliafic](http://opheliafic.livejournal.com/).


End file.
